


sticksfight.com

by InksandPens



Category: Animator vs. Animation (Short Film 2006)
Genre: Alan isn't in this one, Dark Lord is mentioned but doesn't appear, I also don’t know how computer servers work so pardon me, I did this instead of restarting my project, This started as a collection of sentence fragments and evolved beyond my control, i don't even know what it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 08:32:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18232460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InksandPens/pseuds/InksandPens
Summary: The first break in the fighting had been a bit disorienting for them. What were they supposed to do?Fighting was all they knew, so at first, that’s what they did. But it was different.





	sticksfight.com

They learned to forgive and forget quickly. You had to, when your job was to pummel (and get pummeled by) the only people you knew. When it’s literally what you’re built for. No animosity, no real motivation, you just…exist to punch and kick and toss around the same three other people. And get punched and kicked and tossed around in turn.

The first break in the fighting had been a bit disorienting for them. Suddenly, there was no combat, no direction from the other side, no urgency, no sound of blows landing or bodies getting thrown into walls…

What were they supposed to do?

Fighting was all they knew, so at first, that’s what they did. But it was different, without a mouse and keys calling the shots. Suddenly it was up to them to figure out how to defend, where to attack, who was the biggest threat. There was no timer, either, no scorekeeping, no official limit, when a player wasn’t controlling them. So they had to set their own. They had to _agree_.

That was the first time they really connected.

The next time was when they realized the fruits of their practice didn’t matter when a player once again took control. Honestly, some of those fights were just embarrassing. They all had a few good laughs at the incompetence, even if it did get annoying, because they knew they could do better. They had proved it to each other and to themselves when no one was online.

The third time happened right around when doing nothing but fighting, controlled or otherwise, started getting stale. A particularly brutal controller left them all a little shaken, and they figured maybe a real break, for once, would be alright.

So they sat together.

And…it was kinda nice.

* * *

 

Second had a hard time understanding when they tried to explain, but there were times when they didn’t exist.

When no one had the webpage up, they drifted. It wasn’t something they thought of as unpleasant; Yellow compared it to passing out, once he found out what that was. (Actually, he compared it to brain-death, but Blue had him tone it down a bit before they tried telling their orange friend.) They weren’t sleeping, per se, their consciousnesses were just out of commission for a bit.

They discovered that, by passing through the double doors on the second floor, they could drift whenever they wanted. It became a habit, whenever the pauses between fights got long enough to be boring. Sometimes they did it after particularly difficult fights, just to get a bit of a mental break.

After another bad one, they had to promise to each other that they’d never do it when they were upset. On the plus side, they learned how easy it was to simply lean over the threshold and call each other back into wakeful existence.

After that, it was nothing but controlled fights and fun fights and the occasional sitting around and talking. Any time they got a hankering to drift, the time between would pass in an instant, until they called each other out, or the game did.

That changed once they got their first visitor.

Because Second wasn’t their first, oh no. Other sticks had found a way into their box.

They greeted each one, or tried to, at least, even as they wondered how the strangers got in (none had broken through the walls). Green had started wondering a while ago if there were others like them, so they all decided to make a good impression if, hypothetically, they weren’t the only ones of their kind.

The visitors never seemed to like it there much, so they never stayed, but some left them things. Cards. Phones. Tiny clip-art graphics that somehow functioned as well as their counterparts on the other side of the screen, from what they could understand. Suddenly they had more to do in their freetime. They drifted less and less often.

Not all the visitors left them things. Some fought them. It came as a bit of a shock, the first time, but they wouldn’t say it was a bad memory. They’d been fighting each other for so long; they hadn’t known how refreshing a new opponent could be. They talked about those visitors for a long time after, trying to emulate them.

One or two seemed to be in a hurry, mumbling about fiery destruction, and tested their desire to see what else (who else) was out there.

But the one thing all visitors left them with was vague impressions of a world outside their two-story abode.

Second wasn’t the first to visit, but he was the first to bring them along when he left.

* * *

 

Second was more then just a new visitor, a sparring partner, a way out of the box. He ended up being an avenue for their own self-discovery, through nothing more than his own curiosity. Who could predict that one pixelated block game would teach them so much about themselves?

While they still shared certain skills and fondness, their favor took them in completely different directions when given multiple options.

Green cared about beauty. The more intricate, the better. It didn’t matter if the beauty was the kind one saw or the kind one heard, she put thought into all of it. If she had eyes, they would definitely be an artist’s.

Blue was really good with plants, edible (or drinkable, as she later learned) and otherwise, even if she had a strange idea where the line between the two lay. She also discovered that she could be a sore loser. She wondered why it had never mattered when they fought.

Yellow wanted to know how things worked, and then he wanted to figure out how to make them work better, or differently. He also uncovered his own mischievous streak. He needed to be more cautious, though.

Red discovered that being possessed was really, really, really not cool. Animals were, though. The didn’t even have to do anything; their mere existence made him happy.

The farther they traveled, the closer they grew. It was kinda incredible, honestly.

* * *

 

They got bolder. They started leaving their page even when Second wasn’t around to invite them out. They started going places without him. They started going places without _each other_.

Maybe that was why only Red recognized the figure from the rumors.

A mumbled quip from Purple during a League game triggered memories of strangers showing up in their box only to leave again, panicked, flighty, hysterical, all wanting to get away right now, not from them, from something outside. Red pulled him aside for details. Turns out Purple didn’t have many, but he had enough.

Two wandering stickmen who didn’t just fight. They destroyed. Wrecked any desktop or webpage they deigned to show up on. No one was safe from their wrath, not animations, not animators, not even npcs. Though they hadn’t been as active lately, according to Purple. In fact, they seemed to have dropped off the map altogether.

Red ran the timeline by Yellow later on, though he didn’t say what it was for. By the sound of things, that period when all those fleeing guests took a detour through their house had been around the same time as the last marked sighting of those two figures before they apparently went off the grid.

Lucky, Purple said. Apparently, most of that chaos was before their time.

“But multiple desktops? We’ve done that, why is that part such a big deal?”

“We’re just following the server clients; they’re all connected anyway. People say these two ride the actual wifi.”

Red supposed that was kinda bizarre. He would’ve brought it up with yellow, but he didn’t want to worry the others. He was already freaked out enough.

* * *

 

Later, when his gesture of recognition went unheeded, he realized they had no reason to share the sentiment, and he regretted not saying anything sooner.

Because that was definitely one of them down there. He could only watch, frozen, because they were all still stuck to the wall and the bug still couldn’t be stopped but one of _them_ had just shown up out of nowhere and surely the other would follow in a moment and Second was _right there_ and oh God if they weren’t all dead before they definitely were now…

Except that’s not what happened, is it?

Red was the last to jump into the portal, but he still did. He hoped he’d get a chance to update the others before their unexpected savior realized he was being followed.

**Author's Note:**

> Good grief, I really have better things to be doing with my time than nursing the ideas that led to this.


End file.
